Best Rivulets Poems
Far away in a
land torn with war,
she looked for a home.
She was not as pretty as
doves adorning lush gardens,
as exuberant as ducks to play
with,neither as useful as pigeons
in war. The lonely little cuckoo
flew from burnt trees to desolate
orchards. A black bird with yellow
spots on her feathers that other birds
found ugly. She looked for a home where
she'd be accepted for who she was. The
world hurled poisonous arrows at her.
Wounded, she fell in a garden waiting
to die until two little human hands
cocooned her. A girl nursed her agony
and made her feel loved. All her sorrow
began to melt and pour as rain on the fiery
land. She cried with her heart, her honeyed
voice, never heard before. The little girl danced
in joy and kissed her wings to let her fly but
little cuckoo sang to a world lost in pain, her
music blooming pink buds, rushing through
blue rivulets, swaying branches with
soothing wind, caressing parched souls,
raising spirits of warriors with hope.
She stayed for love, ecstatic
at her newfound lilac tune.
She'd found home
in a land
torn with
w ar to dr en ch
it wi th h e r
di vi ne s o ng.
July 11, 2020
Bird Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Constance La France
~Winner: 1st Place
~Poem of the Day: July 13, 2020
~Ranked #3 in Best New Poems for July 2020
Categories:
rivulets, bird, hope, love,
Form:
Shape
The rain set me adrift inside a dream
My mind was on a painting miles upstream
An unforgotten "en plein" I once viewed
A light pastoral springtime interlude
Two horses, one snow white, one shiny black
Two barefoot boys in blue jeans ride bareback
Through pasture weeds bloomed orange almost red
White fluffy mountains loomed as thunderheads
A lightning bolt sends thunder through gray skies
The vivid colors blend in teary eyes
One brother's love becomes a blurry stain
Through windows streaked with rivulets of rain
From inside looking out my hourglass
I watched as nature painted winter's grass
Entranced from listening to her rhythmic rune
One April watercolor afternoon
by Daniel turner
Categories:
rivulets, brother, emotions, memory,
Form:
Iambic Pentameter
When you are
an agonizing
echo from a
benevolent voice,
life exhales in
mahogany haze,
spreading across the
lachrymose meadows as
scarred rivulets of
sandalwood scents,
where ceramic
rhymes slumber in
watercolor coffins
with opaque metaphors,
weaving hoaxed
hymns of the nascent
heavens within these
mortal hues.
I'm a bronze brushstroke
of origami colours,
pinned to the weary
wall as the state
of forsaken art,
splattered in acrylic-
resembling sombre
diamonds that
knit ebony pixels
of my onyx heart,
scattered across the
blistered brims,
framed from
fate crossed palms;
doused in poisoned
henna depicted
in dismay, to portray
the painting of despair
within my splitting mind.
Isn't the monochromatic
shade of an aesthetic
mural a clementine
symmetry, where ruby psalms
stained with black peonies,
bleed thistle-ribboned
tales from an orchid's silence?
Not every artist
can mold
peace from a
pastel palette
filled with poignant
petals engrossed
in purple pain,
but poetic fingers
can sculpt an evergreen
masterpiece through
crisp flakes of
tumbling torment,
carried through
arctic mists.
But is there a
teal-azure texture
to create a
timeless tapestry
interlaced with
lavender musings?
As melancholy soars
beyond roseate realms
like a moon-winged butterfly,
fluttering across
cantaloupe sunsets,
etching heartbeats of
hope in harp's periwinkle pigments,
when twinkling jewels
lose their shine,
leaving tales untold
to waltz with
forlorn silhouettes-
dwelling in a gallery of grief.
For, in the calligraphic
corners of chaos,
I’ve found healing,
between ethereal pages
within a cathartic labyrinth.
Categories:
rivulets, muse,
Form:
Free verse
Sometimes when
moonlight weeps to sleep,
I sit, draped
in burning dreams,
and beautiful nightmares
of moments lost,
engraved along the rising
of blushing blossoms,
within cerulean azure.
But shadows fade,
as clarity descends
upon the ivory beach,
adorned in pearls
and palm leaves.
I await for twilight to
sing my heart to
the milky-way.
I stretch my fingers,
to count glistening gems,
that shower silver
streaks upon my
stranded silhouette.
And I question the universe,
in r i d d l e s and r h y m e s~
what flows within
empty spaces
between iridescent
lines of stars?
Would I find traces
of footprints that left
the face of this earth,
where they
thrive eternal crests
in paradise?
Maybe there’s rivulets
of jewels with initials of
angels residing
in blissful musing,
in hope-filled reveries,
as the cosmic maestros,
orchestrate peaceful notes
with ethereal keys of faith,
In a choir for
celestial requiems,
to heal the grieving mind
that t i m e couldn’t mend.
I saw it rained
a rainbow with frozen
memories through my
glass window..
and I remembered
how I’ve always felt
closer to you in astral realms,
whilst soaked in
galactic light.
So tonight, I whisper,
prayers in poetic prose,
hoping you’ll feel my tears,
from the
highest halcyon haven.
Even death can
never kill a dreamer,
that bears memories,
and relives them
through classical sonatas.
Maybe this is how
a poet reminisces,
heartbeats in h e a v e n…
Categories:
rivulets, absence, destiny, heaven, i
Form:
Free verse
Nobody observes her leaving her room
wearing just her nightdress and red felt carpet slippers
Shuffling silently she slips out of the front door onto the street
Rivulets of rain start to soak her to the skin
Her straggly hair hangs down limply
It becomes so matted and twisted
Soon it looks like writhing snakes are alive on her skull
Her once pretty face is now lined and wrinkled
Rain drips off the crevices and onto her sagging breasts
Wandering off into the night she begins searching
Walking the empty streets with her arms outstretched
Searching, searching, desperately searching
Eventually she reaches the children’s playground
Sitting on a swing she rocks backwards and forwards
The rhythmic movement seems to calm her down
Tears form in her eyes and mingle with the raindrops
Strong arms hold her and she is powerless to resist
She hears voices telling her she must return home
‘We knew you’d eventually find your way here Maisie
It’s time to return to the sanatorium …
In future we will make sure the door alarm is activated’
10~19~15
N/A in previous contest
Submitted to screwed XI
Sponsored by Rob Carmack
Sponsor Nathan D
Title amended and submitted to ''P'' Contest, New or Old Poetry Contest sponsored by Constance La France
Categories:
rivulets, dark, memory, old, sad,
Form:
Free verse
Rivulets of crimson blood
Ooze tantalisingly from the gaping wound on her neck
He drinks hungrily, savouring every salty drop
Dracula wraps his black cape around his shoulders
Fleeing in the moonlight to his crypt in the churchyard.
07~25~16
Crimson Contest Sponsored by Royal Ninja
Categories:
rivulets, dark,
Form:
Free verse
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
I think I made you up inside my head.
-Sylvia Plath
I see no reason to rhyme,
but an aching heart,
stranded in the midst of nothingness,
as quill rests in a nameless
coffin, like a trembling corpse.
Words woven in tears
glisten like rain,
amidst rustic pages
within a book of bleeding ink.
While
I, the deep darkness,
ponder, would the moon
ever grieve for the sun,
or will she allow waning
stars to abandon
her doleful realm?
As her face
shifts and turns through
phases of changes-
and her soul like
the weary winter,
withers into white-washed wounds.
I am the hazy mirror to
a lunar goddess.
There shadows betrayed
this cruel conscience,
roaming within forlorn vales,
swirling through a woeful wind,
to nocturnal sonatas.
My mind nestles like
a raven resting
at the treetop,
calling your name into
frozen oblivion,
laced in secluded silence,
echoing amidst obsidian fears.
What would they know
of tainted tales,
obscured within the
mellifluous sound of splitting rain?
I am throned to a fallen sky,
drizzling thorns and splinters
upon bruised toes.
Remember, I love you,
through dreams and more,
stretching my fingers
to your silvery spheres.
Now your palette of romance
paints a blurred portrait
of hallowed misery;
dreams forgotten with time.
There’s no perfect
pigment to correct
my insomniac frame
but metaphors to lure me
back to a colorless
castle above satanic seas.
I’m dancing with demons;
as the pain you’ve fed me,
rushes through chained chambers.
Tonight, the storms may seem calm,
like forests awaiting for a trail
of redolent rainbows,
to flicker upon mourning meadows.
Tomorrow, when I slumber
six feet beneath breathing fiction,
will you rewrite cruel convictions,
that stole my purpose to live?
Maybe darkness sparkles upon
rich rivulets of rippling regrets,
so the cosmos would allow the moon
to rise and beam brighter than
the selfish sun.
Let this poem be the last
amulet to sorrowful sagas,
as I untangle your vines
suffocating my final breath,
this is the eternal demise—
I’m dying before your dead eyes.
Categories:
rivulets, angst, dark, death,
Form:
Free verse
Neither puppy love nor lust, each insists
in its imperfect play. Their hearts resist
both by clinging in its barbaric way.
Youth forgiven. The wolf begs her to stay.
But a commitment is made in marriage.
It is not found in a baby carriage.
What do we know of love - it’s not first sight.
It is the highs and lows - bond holds on tight.
Love’s patient, kind, not selfish nor boastful.
It’s the making of memories - joyful.
To let go of bitterness’ a decision.
Poof like magic, the wrongs are forgiven.
Black and blues, the stumbles and falls, gets up
on the horse - believers climb to the top.
~
Now what of those years, of the worse decrease?
Does the sorrow make the better cerise?
Does the white-gowned wife, handsome groom resume
as if the bond is pruned, roses in bloom?
Yes, the rivulets of tears reverent.
The jubilee melody resonant.
When love is stirred with sugar and nettles,
sorrow’d years melt. Felicitous petals
land on silver hair and wrinkles. O God!
Yes, three cords complete and restore the flawed.
Love protects, hopes, perseveres in trials.
The truth of a lifetime's years in their smiles.
Shakespeare regales Summer’s hot gaze, short days.
Yet love stoked in the Winter’s hearth - O blaze!
1/30/2021
What Is Love
Sponsor: Unseeking Seeker
Hybronnet is similar to a sonnet, can have a variable rhyme scheme,
does not have to be iambic meter. The poet is given liberty to choose how to structure the rhyme of the Hybronnet poem into a combination of rhymes be it slant, feminine, masculine, etc. or apply it in any design deemed appropriate
Categories:
rivulets, age, love,
Form:
Hybronnet
Before I scarred the page
Raging what your letters cannot invent
Let me invite you to other books
I wrote before you owed me wage
For all maladjustment and discontent
Tettering on tentacles on hooks
Invite you to an open age
Of change and discourse transfigurment.
In a quiet moment read again
Shards of clay and artefacts beyond
A material functional disdain.
Look at the words like old bones
Bringing chromosomal tablets to rinse
The eyes of prejudices and conceit
You may wince
At what your arrogance did delete.
I have winced for years in broken jars
Unleashing rivulets of tears
For I gave you humanity as a gift, stars
Gave you dust and vessel for it
Time etched your abuse against this spirit
As you idolized barren observations
As if them alone could tell truths
Without the presence of experience.
Strange how you so prone to the material
Destroyed so much of its substance
In us. Yet it is inescapbale in the footprints of dust
The chromosomal bridges in our bodies
Linking us, reaffirming the gift again
Documents on my body like a stain
Irreducible by Mercator's illusions
There is no survival without the spiritual.
After protests, marches, firehoses and ropes
Still hanging from leftover branches of fear
I have earned the right to forgive you
The inherent gift make me your brother, here.
So now let us turn the map upside down
And draw again the latitudes unbending
In a straight line to your old thoughts,
Can we agree about the silence of the moon
Is a prohibiting noise in our head, a blind despair.
Categories:
rivulets, philosophyme, old, me, old,
Form:
Free verse
A simple scene a nestling seeks the comfort of the night
to lay enthralled, engrossed, in memories of past days,
the nectar drawn from rivulets that run past blackened lash.
A lidded eye roves left, then right, as if it’s been betrayed
a corner tick, a slight knee twitch, odd choices now made.
The blanket once a comforter now twists so very tight.
A falling dream, a horrid scream, yet no land's in sight.
Bloodless body, writhe, heave, callout, nobody's home
your casing calls, umbilicus, umbilicus, reel me down.
A flying lift of breeze ‘neath hips, a lofting, oh so, high,
brings soul to ground with sighing sound within the dream,
entranced, aroused, the coming light, the end of night, wake.
First Published in Sweet Dreams and Night Terrors 2013
Categories:
rivulets, fear, night,
Form:
Verse
The moss clung tightly; making it unbearable to breathe,
and she sealed her lips tighter than a clam’s— not letting the pain take over
As the stars drift silently, like ships on a lost sea of darkness,
she whispers to Hope:
“Swim free and look for the horizon, then come back to me...”
The night; collected on the leaves,
drops fell like Mermaid’s milk onto an already moist floor
Striking the shimmering tearful medium,
it gives birth to a shower of graceful pearls as the dawn awaits
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I hear your voice drift upon a cool ocean breeze;
gilded words of adoration
I glide towards it, praying that it guides me,
strengthens me,
nurtures me
like Mermaid’s milk
Touch as I might, my senses are in-different to please, my voice mute!
Be my Siren’s song and sing for me, serenade my senses back to life...
With an inquisitive tongue, I taste an almost scentless flower
It is but a wisp, a whisper, a flick of a ray of sunshine, but it was There.
So much is lost.
The rivulets of time, hear me, see me, like a ghostly apparition...
Capture me in that moment by lovingly painting me.
Sing me a song while you do,
and let the Mermaid’s milk flow again.
*****
Thank you David, for waiting ever so patiently for my long overdue part--
it was a very nice challenge for me to write this :)
Thank you very much for the inspiring lines...
Categories:
rivulets, hope, mystery, me, song,
Form:
Free verse
You must be in so much pain to be considering this.
The hurt, the misery, the anguish, the agony;
you can feel it burrowing its way deep inside,
gnawing voraciously at the very core of your being
and you would do anything - anything - just to make it stop.
I know you're scared; but that's okay - the World can be a scary place,
but can this last, desperate, act that you're deliberating,
really, truly, genuinely be what you are seeking...?
Dispel fanciful notions of sliding into Death's warm embrace;
there is no gentle kiss, no sweet release and off to sleep.
You will simply... no longer be; and that is just too dreadful to contemplate.
It might not feel like it now, but things *will* get better.
The future is laden with hope and ripe with potential,
however, the complex rivulets of life are often turbulent
and we must ride them out if we are to reach the next bend.
But if you take this final, irrevocable, step... you will never know what awaits.
And therein lies the real tragedy.
So please, I implore you, reach out to a friend or a loved one;
talk to them, share your burdens and, maybe, even shed a few tears.
The future will look brighter tomorrow and I want you there to see it.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
15 September 2017
Written for Suicide Prevention Month.
My thoughts go out to all those affected by the tragedy of losing a loved one in this way and, especially, to those struggling with their own thoughts of suicide. Please... speak to somebody.
Categories:
rivulets, angst, anti bullying, anxiety,
Form:
Free verse
hanging in the air
humidity’s heaviness . . .
the river’s slow crawl
On the Mississippi lies the beautiful little city where I once lived. How many times I trudged up inclined streets; or leaning forward, red-faced and panting, pressed up slopes with all my might, feet on pedals of my purple Sting-ray bike, urging myself not to dismount prior to reaching glorious level ground! The damp beneath my clothing in those days was a given. Simply stopped to rest. . . sipping pop underneath a tree, I would often feel rivulets of sweat that trickled down beneath my underarms, a surfeit which caused circle stains to appear beneath the arms of short-sleeved shirts or on Sundays, beneath the flowered dresses that I wore to church. However, despite the heat’s discomfort, it was summer, after all!
counting down the days
until the school bell’s last ring -
a fling with summer
Released from stifling classrooms for vacation, I eagerly embraced the sun. . .and how I played! Kickball with the neighbors, visits to the city pool with my sisters and friends, bike rides to parks or into town, where I spent my allowance on records and treats, and hours racing eagerly through the pages of Nancy Drew books in front of a cooling fan - all these things consumed me.
It was in the month of August, and more than a decade of muggy summers later that I found myself transplanted in a desert. As if thrust into a giant pre-set oven with a noose about my neck, I learned firsthand the meaning of “slow roast.” Here, in the new and different place where I've now lived most of my adult life, the heat can leave one with a burn like acid watered down, a deep sensation lingering in skin long after sun has left the sky. Perspiration may just evaporate before it has a chance to wend its way along the body’s contours. Discomfort notwithstanding, there’s no pain. Acclimated to these summers now, I find that it is easier for me to breathe in August heat than it was the first time I’d ever encountered it. Released from stifling work, I go outside into the oven, pen in suntanned hand!
sunshine reflections
so many summers have passed
writing till twilight
Categories:
rivulets, life,
Form:
Haibun
When the sky is a
sequestered sanctuary,
and the clouds croon
for sinking star-beams,
listen to the euphoric hymns of silence,
for seething storms throned
beneath rainbow castles
shall never obscure the
crystalline colors of compassion,
amidst thickened fangs
of dwelling darkness,
constantly trying to
seize peacock pigments
within violet-blue seas
of sequined sentiments…
O’ beloved white rose~
perfumed in vanilla love,
let not the wolf-spider gaze,
mirroring envy within black widow hearts,
confuse your diamond vision.
It’s just another day,
enveloped in a warm sakura sunrise,
there the gales of greed
looming in ghostly flecks,
question the redolence of rivulets
behind your veiled vigor.
There’s no reason to fear
when hope flows and drifts
like comets flying as fluttering butterflies
across the butterscotch horizon.
Remember, when the sage sun
seeps into foggy crevices,
and deserted dunes
speak in ashen accents,
their choice of words do not define
the rhythm of your seraphic symphony.
Your merlot wine spirit is
the whimsical wand turning unspoken
tales into wildflower wishes.
There’s no need for an alchemist
nor a sorcerer to concoct
spells that rearrange constellations,
as your voice swirls in magical mists.
You and I, are every last thing
we need to conquer the bewitching
perimeters we truly deserve.
Tonight, when my lids rest upon the
dreamscape of daffodils and dahlias,
I see that look in your eye.
I ponder, is it me that you long for?
Am I the unfading ink
within your saccharine sonnets?
I yearn to be the one you talk
about in sweet seclusion.
This trembling canvas longs
for no other skin to caress the acrylic
edges of my aching soul,
and I do not need
the wind and water
beneath whistling willows
to write my destiny
in green and gold.
We don’t need shades of shadows
following our intertwined silhouettes,
yet I let these metaphors
merge with the heat of
your passionate presence,
as you and I break through
the landscapes of grief
with mutual attraction
like the mulberry rays
between the moon and earth..
Categories:
rivulets, deep, love,
Form:
Free verse
Musty antiquity
within.
Spice inside
a cauldron
of ripe reason.
Five months
unshelved
brewing boiling
now the suave coolness,
animals don’t know
how to simmer their lovebroth
like this.
Only the Titan breath, what they desired remained.
The world was dark, centralised
spherical
the centre imposed
upon her perfect
cheekbones
his horned chest
woolen jumper swollen with clues
breasts rising like meringues in a brick oven
on her lips hung her whole life
he extracted from her lips
what he knew she was
dying to give.
Ambience, randomosity, the
haze of a lantern
stage-lit movement in dust
eyes swivelled, bottles made
their pleas to be known
wise ancestral spirits
The gallery browsed.
Time stuck
between the molars.
Abandoned corner;
hazelnut liquer, pomegranate
blood and something else.
They sat on the ground
with this raspberry wine
and sipped each other
profoundly, irrevocably.
She, mineral rich
rivulets of stone-clean water,
soft aquamarine. He, present
like limestone
crumbling to a silent past,
frictitious, only lovers perch
on the cracked mantle
of reality like this,
only they hear the moment's plea
for recognition.
Copyright. 2009.
Categories:
rivulets, happiness, love, passion
Form:
Narrative